Nicholas Fury (Earth-616)
Real Name: Nicholas Joseph Fury Nicknames: None Former Aliases: Doyle, The Mystery in the Mask, Patch, Scorpio Other Current Aliases: No other known current aliases =Status= Occupation: Soldier Legal Status: Citizen of the United States Identity: Publicly known Marital Status: Single Known Relatives: Jack Fury (father), Mrs Jack Fury (mother), 'Ma' Fury (stepmother), Jacob Fury (brother), Dawn Fury (sister), Mikel Fury (son) Affiliation: SHIELD, CIA (former agent), OSS (former intelligence agent), United States Army (former colonel) Base of operation: SHIELD Helicarrier, apartment in Manhattan =Origin= Place of Birth: New York, New York First Appearance: Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #1 =History= The eldest of three children Nicholas Joseph Fury grew up in Depression-era New York City with his brother Jake and sister Dawn. Fury's mother died while he was very young and his father Jack Fury, an American pilot who joined the British war effort during during World War I, remarried and the children were raised by his stepmother in lieu of Jack Fury's own early death. It wouldn't be until Nick Fury became a solider himself overseas that he would learn of his father's military service. Living in the tough streets of Hell's Kitchen, Fury soon became fast friends with Red Hargrove, whom he helped keep out of trouble. Fury himself, was no stranger to trouble, but more then often confined it to the boxing ring where he would bout or in the Police Athletic League where he became one of the finest marksman. Fury and Hargrove caught the eye of Lt. "Happy Sam" Sawyer who enlisted them for a special mission in Holland. On this mission Fury made the acquaintance of his future life-long friend, the circus strongman Dum Dum Dugan. Seeing the Nazi menace first hand, Hargrove was moved to say he would enlist and Fury said he would follow him. However Fury didn't enlist until 1941, where he received nine weeks of basic training at Fort Dix without Red Hargrove, hoping to ride out the wave of unemployment in the States. Eventually Fury reunited with Hargrove, both getting stationed at Pearl Harbor. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Fury is spurned on by the death of Hargrove during the attack to join the U.S. Rangers, and is eventually recruited and reunited with Captain Sawyer who assigns him command of the First Attack Squad; aka "The Howling Commandos". A specially trained band of soldiers who undertook some of the most dangerous missions of the war. Together with Dum Dum Dugan as his second in command, Fury lead Gabe Jones, Reb Ralston, Dino Manilli, Eric Koeing, Izzy Cohen, Percival Pinkerton, and Jonathan Juniper against the likes of The Red Skull, Baron Zemo, and other Axis villains, fighting alongside such war heroes as Captain America. As leader of the Howling Commandos, Fury struck blow after blow against the Nazi and their allies through missions that ranged from deep infiltration missions behind enemy lines to undercover work and even some home front action. Two serious injuries sustained during this time would have a serious impact in his later life, a grenade blast that began the slow deterioation of his sight in his right eye and a landmine accident that lead to Fury being inoculated with the Infinity Formula by Professor Berthold Sternberg in France. Endowed with a process that granted him a substantially slower aging process, Fury was thrust with a double edged sword; although his life was saved, the consequences of the Infinity Formula would haunt him throughout his life as he would see many friends age and die, as well as become the target of various villains seeking his secret. It was during the war that Fury first crossed paths with his most dangerous foe, Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker. Strucker's humiliating defeats at the hands of Fury would drive Strucker to devote a lifetime seeking revenge. Among the formative events during this period of his life include the friendships made with Dum Dugan and Gabe Jones (both of whom would follow him into SHIELD) and a near fatal injury that would eventually cost him the use of his right eye. Also during the war, Fury met Lady Pamela Hawley, who would become his first (and some say only true) love. Tragically she died before Fury was able to propose marriage to her. During his relationship with Hawley, they crossed paths with Dr. Strange in an adventure that would offer a taste of his future strange and extraordinary adventures. During the war Fury and his Commandos faced super-powered menaces that included vampires and other-dimensional beings. The end of the war brought many changes to Fury's life, foremost Among them the revelation that his life was to extend far further then he had ever expected. On a mission in France near the end of the war, Fury was inoculated with the "Infinity Formula" by Professor Berthold Sternberg following a potentially fatal injury. Endowed with a process which granted him a substantially slower aging process, Fury was thrust with a double edged sword; although his life was saved, the consequences of the Infinity Formula would haunt him throughout his life as he would see many friends age and die, as well as become the target of various villains seeking his secret. Dr. Sternberg himself was not immune to taking advantage of Fury's delicate situation, basically holding Fury's life for ransom starting in 1946, every year through 1976 by charging Fury a high fee for more of the serum. For most soldiers, after V-J Day the war was over, and it was time to go home and live a normal life again. This was not the case for Nick Fury. Following a number of "mop-up" missions with the Howlers, Sgt. Fury was reassigned and left his war time comrades behind in France, heading for Okinawa. His skills were quickly put to use with the growing intelligence community. The Office of Strategic Services had recognized Fury's potential during the war, using him for a few missions into German occupied France and based on this he was officially recruited by Colonel Tom Lynaugh. He was flown to Langley where he began training as an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, serving through till his appointment into SHIELD During these cloak & dagger years, Fury saw action in the Korean war, briefly reuniting with some of the former Howling Commandos who reenlisted. On one particular mission with the Howlers joined Fury and Colonel "Happy" Sam Sawyer for a covert mission to destroy a MIG airbase, a mission that earned Fury a long-deserving commission to Colonel. Fury also became involved in fighting Communist Chinese forces. Foreshadowing his heavy involvement with super-powered beings as director of SHIELD, Fury recruited the then still new Fantastic Four to investigate goings-on in what would reveal itself to be a master plot by the Hate-Monger. Fury's eye began to finally fail around this time In the early 1960's Fury was contacted by the Board of Directors of the newly organized international espionage organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division) and offered directorship by Tony Stark alternate theory adds that the Deltite LMD manipulated events so that Fury would be chosen. Fury served as SHIELD's director throughout the 1960's, 70's, and 80's. At his side were fellow Howlers Dum Dum Dugan and Gabe Jones, as well as long-time love, the beautiful Countessa Valentina Allegra De La Fontiane. His command of SHIELD coincided with the ascension to Supreme Hydra by Fury's old W.W. II nemesis, Baron Von Strucker. The Cold War ignited with a war between HYDRA and SHIELD, resulting in a near fatal blow at HYDRA Island where Fury sunk the base with its leader locked inside its atomic core, left for dead. Fury served the original incarnation of SHIELD both as administrative head and as field commander. His fearless leadership saw the organization through myriad crises and helped it rise to become the world's premier covert-operations agency. Fury and SHIELD thwarted numerous major threats to the world's freedom launched by such groups as Baron Strucker's creation HYDRA and the Zodiac-headed at one time by Fury's brother, Jacob. Fury also assisted Earth's superheroes in cases, and SHIELD spearheaded Earth's defenses during many of its worse crises, including the alien Dire Wraith invasion, attacks by the likes of the Yellow Claw and Loki and hunting down of creatures such as Godzilla and the Hulk. After the final strike against HYDRA, SHIELD grew to a vast international network the likes of which not even Fury could personally oversee entirely. Thus in 1988 the Deltite Affair erupted which brought an end to SHIELD and sent Fury into self-imposed exile. A year later, events engineered by both the late Von Strucker and the Yellow Claw, brought Fury back out of his exile and thus a second S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate) was commissioned under a United Nations charter with Fury once again as its director. This incarnation of SHIELD struggled to gain its footing with resentment from other espionage agencies and the task of assembling enough resources and manpower to combat the growing international threats. One of these threats was once again HYDRA, lead by a resurrected Von Strucker whose plans to cripple the first SHIELD were successful enough to allow a HYDRA retaliation against the new, but weaker agency. The attack leveled SHIELD Central, killed 1,500 agents, and left Fury bitter and vindictive. Eventually Fury managed to defeat Von Strucker and put an end to his existence. With Von Strucker seemingly gone at last, Fury still did not feel a whole man and his disillusionment with SHIELD continued. Fury found himself siding against his friends more and more, including Captain America during the Genosian Crisis and being used as a pawn to collect "rogue" elements like Cable and Ghost Rider for subversives within the government. Worse still was having to hunt his own son, Mikel, who once again donned his Scorpio identity to fight in a civil war in Carpassia. Fury faced internal strife as the defection of former KGB interrogator Dimitri Panshin instigated a rogue faction within SHIELD to make Panshin pay for his crimes. Fury and Captain America joined with Titanium Man and AIM to stop the renegades. Likely as a result of the rouge agents affair, SHIELD faced severe cutbacks in funding. With a scaled back SHIELD, Fury was glad to be reunited with his son Mikel in 1995. Together, father and son helped thrawt a revenge scheme by the ex-wife of the head of HYDRA's NYC cell, involving a mini-neutron bomb. Later they stopped a black-market arms racket funding the local street gangs in Hell Kitchen. As the 1990's and his fourth decade as director drew to a close, Fury had Tony Stark construct a "perfect" L.M.D. (perhaps based on the Deltite LMD) which took Fury's place while he investigated a message from the former director. His investigations took him once again to the lower levels of what was once SHIELD Central, finding himself caught in a trap that housed Fury in a pocket dimension. In a stroke of luck, the use of the LMD Fury coincided with an attempt on Fury's life by Spook, a subversive seeking control of SHIELD. This resulted in a brainwashed Punisher bringing about the "death" of Nick Fury for all the world to see. Brought back from the pocket dimension by former agent Sharon Carter, the real Nick Fury once again attempted to set SHIELD straight; uncovering an unauthorized NEMESIS project by EXTECHOP and later taking a short leave of absence from the directorship to investigate the disappearance of agent David Ferrari. Fury tried to take charge of any agency that had once again grown too large for him to handle. Perhaps the greatest threat to SHIELD came with the hijacking of the helicarrier by the Red Skull, leading to a near year long hunt for the craft, which culminated in a battle with the a new Hate-Monger and the Skull. Following the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11th 2001, Nick Fury and SHIELD found their roles expanded to deal with the ever growing terrorist threats and the stronger tactics being employed by both superheros and supervillians alike. Recent assignments have included dealing with the Fantastic Four in a post-Doom Latveria, weather attacks on the United States by a rogue SHIELD agent, and safeguarding Tony Stark from assassination attempts. Nick Fury and SHIELD are more vital then ever and provide the world with its first and best defense against the forces of chaos and anarchy.